Don’t get me wrong, I still like Blockbuster online, but I’m curious about the logistics of their warehousing operations. I’ll try to keep this simple…

When I ship two movies back to Blockbuster, from the same mailbox, they arrive on different days. Say I send both out Tuesday morning. Wednesday morning they will notify me that they have received one of the films. Later that day, they’ll ship out a new one. But what about the other one I mailed? Well, apparently they don’t receive that one until the next day, or even later.

The first time this happened I chalked it up to random effects of the postal service. It’s happened 4 or 5 times since then, however, and it doesn’t seem very random any more. I’m curious if Blockbuster is starting to implement the same type of throttling feature Netflix likes to torture their hard-core customers with.

Anyway, I’d love to learn about their processes and operations. Interesting stuff. If they are having logistic problems, maybe my dad can help them out.

We’ve been using Blockbuster Online for our movie rental service for close to a year now. Overall, we like it but I’ve got two major gripes:

We have received a lot of damaged discs since we started. They do a good job of shipping out a replacement as soon as I report the problem, but the number of damaged discs we receive is still too many, in my opinion. I’ve emailed them about this and their response is it’s the USPS’s fault. I’m not sure I buy that. If all the discs were cracked, then I’d blame the USPS. Most of the problems we run into are with scratches and for that I blame careless users and poor quality control at Blockbuster.

The other issue is the recommendations I get. I was bored one day so I went through and rated some of the movies I have seen to bolster my recs. After doing a few I took a look to see what Blockbuster thought I would like to see. Most of the suggestions were good, but more than a couple of the recommended films were things I had just finished rating. They stand out because films you have rated show your rating with yellow stars. Films you haven’t seen show everyone’s average rating in blue stars. I have no idea why movies I’ve rated are showing up in my recommended list. I emailed them about this and they didn’t have an explanation. They said they would fix it, and they did, but now it’s acting up again. This to me seems like an easy one to fix but it’s something that should never happen to begin with.

Other than those two minor issues, I don’t have any complaints about the service. They raised the price on us a couple months ago but it’s still a good deal when you factor in the 2 free in-store rentals you get every month. The selection is improving and the turnaround time is pretty good. No throttling like I’ve read Netflix does.

One thing I wish Blockbuster would add that Netflix offers is the ability for every person in your family to have their own queue. Then they just rotate through the queues when it is time to ship a new one. As it stands now, I have to keep adjusting the queue to keep everyone happy.

I came across an article today that proclaimed Plummeting 2005 box office sparks Hollywood crisis. There’s nothing too surprising in it – they’ve been saying the same thing since the summer returns started coming in. The Yahoo article mentions the usual factors – no good movies, rise of people watching DVDs and playing video games as reasons behind the decline.

There is one reason for the decline that the article did not mention that I think is primarily responsible, however. My highly scientific poll of friends and co-workers came up with the same reason – going to the movies sucks!

Going to see a movie at the theatre used to be a pretty neat event. I enjoyed it when I was little, even when I was in high school and college. Lately, though, I’d rather get my teeth cleaned at the dentist than sit in a theatre and watch a movie. Why do I hate the experience so much?

Expensive tickets – $8.50 and up for a ticket? I can own the DVD when it comes out for the same amount it will cost my wife and I to attend.

15 minutes of commercials before the movie – OK…so I just paid $17 to watch a movie…now you’re going to make me sit through a bunch of commercials for paper towels and soft drinks? Seriously? Previews I like. Commercials I hate.

Moronic viewer behavior – I’ll chalk this one up to grumpy old man syndrome, but I don’t think I’m alone in this. People don’t seem to feel the need to be silent during a movie anymore. There are always conversations taking place and there is usually somebody on their cell-phone. It’s incredible. Combine that with laser pointers, and some funny-guy’s need to talk back to the screen and my couch looks better and better.

Rip-off concession stand prices – This one isn’t new. It’s always been bad, at least as long as I can remember. I, along with many others, fill up with goodies purchased from a store instead of from the theatres. The only thing you can’t sneak in is popcorn, the rest is easy. I’m sure (at least I’d like to think) that theatre operators have run some pretty complex supply/demand/pricing models to maximize profits and determined that, yes, $3.50 is a great price for a bag of Skittles that can be purchased outside the theatre for less than $1.

Poor theatre technology – This one won’t apply to everyone but it will sooner than later. My home theatre setup is just as good, if not better, than most cinema’s. As long as I can watch the DVD version and the theatre shows the film version, complete with pops, scratches and the squiggley hair thingys, I’ll take my setup over theirs.

Ahhhhhh…I feel better now. I might have missed one or two but those are my big complaints. If the big movie chains can fix these issues, or if a new player can come in and mix things up, I’ll give attending the movies another shot. Until then, I’ll just keep adding to my Blockbuster queue.

I finally got around to watching Shaun of the Dead this past weekend and I have to say I loved it.

I won’t go into the plot a great deal as there are tons of sites that can explain it much better than I can. My wife wasn’t interested in watching it with me, but I think she’d would have liked it if she did. It’s a very funny movie, but not in a slapstick kind of way (which is what DeAnne was expecting, I think). It’s also a bit of a romantic comedy, which I didn’t expect. I guess I should have read the bit on the cover that states, “A smash hit romantic comedy. With zombies.” I think that sums it up perfectly.

If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend checking it out or adding it to your Blockbuster/Netflix queue.